History Main / SinsofOurFathers

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

* This is a large part of the plot of ''TheCountOfMonteCristo,'' minus the undead/SealedEvilInACan stuff.
** Well part of his original plan at least, [[spoiler: two of the children do fairly well out of Dantes' revenge (one especially well), and the third accepted the punishment rather than having it forced on him. ]]
*** Until you remember that the Count gave [[spoiler: de Villefort's wife access to poison in the hope that she would kill the rest of the family to insure her son's inheritance. The Count didn't care that the daughter Valentine would be murdered until he learned Maximilian Morrel was in love with her. He was also more than willing to kill Alfred until Mercédès begged him not to. One of the children still does die, though he had never intended for the wife to kill her own child.]]

* ''{{Merlin}}'' also had an episode named "Sins of the Father", where Uther's BackStory and Arthur's birth comes to light. It ain't pretty.

* ''AceAttorney'', Manfred von Karma. Whoo boy. [[spoiler: Gregory Edgeworth made him receive a penalty in court, the tinest blot on his perfect record, and von Karma murdered him while he was trapped in an elevator. He then adopted Edgeworth's ten year old son Miles and raised him to be a ruthless prosecutor who cared only for finding defendents guilty, letting Miles believe that he was the one who'd accidentally shot Gregory Edgeworth. A few days before the statute of limitations ran out von Karma framed him for a related murder, waited until Miles was cleared, and then reaccused him of ''his own father's murder''.]] And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling defense attorneys.
* I'm surprised it took this long for ''FinalFantasyX'' to be here and that it's not the primary video game example either. The Main Antagonist of the story is literally a gigantic Sin of the Father conglomerate monstrosity.

* In ''[[BaldursGate Baldur's Gate 2]]'', [[spoiler:Firkraag]] torments you partially to take revenge upon your foster father, Gorion, who injured him in a battle many years previously: Gorion died in the beginning of the first game, so he's had to settle for the second best thing. He himself admits that it wouldn't really bring him any closure or anything, [[ChaoticEvil but he can do it and thus he did]].

->'''Price''': The sins of the father...
->'''Griggs''': Ain't it a bitch?

** {{Subverted}} in a later episode; when Worf is given the opportunity to avenge himself on the son of the guy who killed his woman, Worf declines.

This one's really popular with immortal or {{undead}} antagonists, such as vengeful ghosts, liches, vampires, dragons, and the like, as well as many a SealedEvilInACan, whose first order of business upon getting out of said can is often meting out some very nasty payback on the descendants of the people who put it in there to start with. As said descendants have typically (though not always) done nothing wrong other than be descended from the people who originally wronged the villain, the result is often a monstrous injustice that a hero will have to set to rights, usually by taking down the villain in question. Or a villain may {{curse}} a family, with it descending to generation after generation of innocents.

The trope name comes from the ancient saying, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children." This is a paraphrasing of TheBible, Exodus 20:5-6, "You shall not bow down to them [idols] or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."

[[AC: TheBible]]
* In addition to the quote above, The attack on the Alamekites in ''I Samuel'', where God orders Saul to completely annihilate them because their ancestors attacked the Israelites during the Exodus. (though it is indicated that the Amalekites were still as bad as they had been then)
** And because Saul, a king from the line of Benjamen, spared Agag, the latter's descendant Haman tried to kill not only Mordecai, of the same tribe, but the entire Jewish race.
** This is why sometimes if someone were to be put to death for a crime, their children would be put to death too, the general theory being that if you let them live they'd want revenge.

** The biggest problem with the plot is that he was supposed to be a child murderer, but instead of killing the children of his killers when they were, well, children, he waited until they were at their late teens for the sake of the movies' target demography.

** Families ? Try ''countries''. North America and the native genocides, Germans and the Nazis, France and LesCollaborateurs, Japan and the war crimes, there's enough hate to feed a whole planet of trolls.

The act of exacting {{revenge}} (even when positioned as "just retribution") upon the descendants of the one who originally did the wrong in question, who is either already dead or cannot be reached at the moment.

This one's really popular with immortal or {{undead}} antagonists, such as vengeful ghosts, liches, vampires, dragons, and the like, as well as many a SealedEvilInACan, whose first order of business upon getting out of said can is often meting out some very nasty payback on the descendants of the people who put it in there to start with. As said descendants have typically done nothing wrong other than be descended from the people who originally wronged the villain, the result is often a monstrous injustice that a hero will have to set to rights, usually by taking down the villain in question. Or a villain may {{curse}} a family, with it descending to generation after generation of innocents.

The trope name comes from the ancient saying, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children." This is a paraphrasing of TheBible, Exodus 20:5, [[GodIsEvil "For I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me."]] (The first Talion laws [[RetCon backpedaled this]]).

* In addition to the quote above, The slaughter of the Alamekites in ''I Samuel'', where God orders Saul to completely annihilate them because their ancestors attacked the Israelites during the Exodus.
** And because Saul, a king from the line of Benjamen, spared Agag, the latter's distant descendant Haman tried to kill not only Mordecai, of the same tribe, but the entire Jewish race.
* And of course there is the obvious "man goes to hell because of something that was done by Adam and Eve".
** No, men go to hell for their own sins. The blood curse created a sin-nature, but it is for one's own sins that one dies.
*** Which roughly works out to being the same thing.
** No if Christ didn't die on the cross,then we'd go to hell,[[GodIsGood but He did sacrifice Himself so everyone who lived a good life could go to Heaven]]
* This was actually a codified part of ancient Israeli law. If a man was to be put to death for a crime, his children would be put to death too, the general theory being that if you let them live they'd want revenge.
** Huh? Where did you hear that one? Certainly not from the Bible. Then again, the Israelites weren't exactly keen on holding to the dictates of the Torah.
*** Book of Joshua, Chapter 7, Aachan was caught stealing gold from the ruins of Jericho, and was stoned to death along with his wife, ''children'' and livestock.

* Murtagh from ''[[TheInheritanceTrilogy Eragon]]'' is imprisoned by the Vardens due to the crimes his father did.

The trope name comes from the ancient saying, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children." This is a paraphrasing of TheBible, Exodus 20:5, "For I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me." (The first Talion laws [[RetCon backpedaled this]]).

* In ''[[BaldursGate Baldur's Gate 2]]'', the red dragon Firkragg hunts you for no other reason than to take revenge upon your foster father, Gorion, who injured him in a battle many years previously.

* General Zod is very clear that his thirst for revenge against Jor-El for thwarting and imprisoning him and his followers extends to his son as well, Kal-El aka ''{{Superman}}'': "[[KneelBeforeZod You will bow down before me, Jor-El! Both you and one day, you're heirs!]]"

** Which would come back to bite Shang in a big way when he and his family received this very punishment, which was among the reforms that Shang himself made to Qin law, after he was convicted of treason against King Huiwen of Qin. Family execution in general was known as the "Nine Exterminations," referring to the nine groups the offender's relations were categorized into, and in Ancient China, it was reserved for rebellion and treason, the worst capital offenses of the period.

** Well part of his original plan at least, [[hottip:spoiler - click to reveal: two of the children do fairly well out of Dantes' revenge (one especially well), and the third accepted the punishment rather than having it forced on him. ]]
*** Until you remember that the Count gave [[hottip:spoiler - click to reveal: de Villefort's wife access to poison in the hope that she would kill the rest of the family to insure her son's inheritance. The Count didn't care that the daughter Valentine would be murdered until he learned Maximilian Morrel was in love with her. He was also more than willing to kill Alfred until Mercédès begged him not to. One of the children still does die, though he had never intended for the wife to kill her own child.]]

* A particularly ironic variation happens in Dickens' ''ATaleOfTwoCities'' where [[hottip:spoiler - click to reveal: Dr. Manette was unjustly imprisoned by two twins after he flubbed to the police about them raping a peasant girl and killing her brother. He is unfortunately imprisoned in the brutal Bastille, which eats away at his sanity. He writes a journal describing how he got there, but due to amnesia, forgets all about it once freed. Later in the book, Charles Darnay, his son-in-law, is up for trial in the crazy revolutionary France. When Dr. Manette asked who testified against him, it turns out Darnay . . . is the son of one of the twins that imprisoned him, and they know all about it thanks to the recovery of Dr. Manette's journal. Ultimately, at the end of the journal, he condemns all the posterity of the twins that imprisoned him, saying "I, Alexandre Manette . . . denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth." As thus, he ultimately wound up testifying against his son-in-law because of this trope.]]

* Ace in ''OnePiece'' seems to suffer from this as [[spoiler: he is the son of Gol D. Roger and was hunted by the World Government even [[NiceJobBreakingItHerod before he was born in an attempt to rid the world of the Pirate King's lineage]]. One of his captain's men, Squardo, even turns on Whitebeard after this reveal as his crew was previously wiped out by Roger. Whitebeard calms him down and states that it's hardly Ace's fault that Roger had committed these deeds.]]

** Yusei Fudo of ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh 5DS}}'' has definitely born his share of suffering and guilt because of his father designing/discovering Momentum, which was responsible for Zero Reverse and [[{{Understatement}} all sorts of problems]] thereafter.

** Semi-used in the ''Yu-gi-oh'' manga. Duke Devlin/Ryuuji Otogi's father lost a Shadow Game to Solomon/Sugurokou Moto, so he makes Duke/Ryuuji battle Yugi.
** Also played with in the anime, where Rebecca Hawkins wants to battle Yuugi because her grandfather lost a game to Yuugi's.

->-- ''Peter Petrelli and Adam Monroe, ''[[{{Heroes}} Episode 2-10 - Truth and Consequences]]''

!!Examples

* In the eighth DragonballZ movie, Paragus and Broly lured Vegeta into an elaborate ruse in order to take revenge on him for his father's actions towards them. Fearful of Broly's power, he ordered the Saiyan child to be executed, then tried to kill Paragus for the crime of pleading for his son's life.
** And a more notable case in DragonBallGT, where Baby, [[LastOfHisKind last of the Tuffles]], a race who were exterminated by the Saiyans, seeks retribution against Goku and Vegeta [[RevengeByProxy as well as the inhabitants of their new home, Earth]].

** Also, played with in GGundam. [[spoiler: Rain's father was one of the conspirators involved in the GovernmentConspiracy brewed by [[MagnificentBastard Ulube Ishikawa]] inside his XanatosRoulette, which more or less directly involved the destruction of the Kasshu family. This shames his daughter so much that, after learning of such things, she decides to leave her boyfriend and partner Domon Kasshu because of this... and it makes the poor girl the perfect [[BarrierMaiden Seitai]] [[BrainwashedAndCrazy unit]] for the Devil Gundam, which comes in possession of Ulube.]]

* The first arc of {{Runaways}} Volume 3 used this. A group of Majesdanians come looking for Karolina, hoping to prosecute her for her parents' role in starting a war between their species and the Skrulls that devastated both. The fact that Karolina had no control over any of that, and even went through with an ArrangedMarriage to try and bring peace, doesn't stop them - their species is almost extinct, and they need ''someone'' to blame.

* In Lindsay Lohan's version of Freaky Friday, Anna's teacher subject her to unfair treatment - simply because, when the teacher was younger, Anna's mother turned down a date with him.

* A particularly ironic variation happens in Dickens' ATaleOfTwoCities where [[hottip:spoiler - click to reveal: Dr. Manette was unjustly imprisoned by two twins after he flubbed to the police about them raping a peasant girl and killing her brother. He is unfortunately imprisoned in the brutal Bastille, which eats away at his sanity. He writes a journal describing how he got there, but due to amnesia, forgets all about it once freed. Later in the book, Charles Darnay, his son-in-law, is up for trial in the crazy revolutionary France. When Dr. Manette asked who testified against him, it turns out Darnay . . . is the son of one of the twins that imprisoned him, and they know all about it thanks to the recovery of Dr. Manette's journal. Ultimately, at the end of the journal, he condemns all the posterity of the twins that imprisoned him, saying "I, Alexandre Manette . . . denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth." As thus, he ultimately wound up testifying against his son-in-law because of this trope.]]

* {{Merlin}} also had an episode named "Sins of the Father", where Uther's BackStory and Arthur's birth comes to light. It ain't pretty.

* Inverted in {{Myst}}. Saavedro attempts to visit the sins of the sons upon the father, the sons being inconveniently unavailable because the father... [[NeverSayDie already disposed of them]].

* In DragonAge: Origins - [[ExpansionPack Awakening]], Nathaniel Howe is attempting to Atone for his father [[CompleteMonster Arl Rendon Howe's]] sins. A disturbingly high amount of players opt to have him killed in retaliation for his father's crimes despite the fact that Nathaniel hasn't seen his father since he was a child.

* TheSimpsons:

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